Honeybun’s only homework for September is learning 101 sight words. Some of them she learned last year in Pre-K and a few of them she’s learned at school but the majority of the “teaching” is falling on me.
The teacher broke the list into 5 different groups of 10-31 words per list. When Honeybun learns each word on a list, I sign it and send it back and if she can read them all to her teacher, she gets to pick from the “treasure box” (oh the treasure box…that’s a post for another day!)
The trick, though, is she has to be able to read them out of order since she’s supposed to be learning them in order to be able to read them in books, etc. Honeybun is they type that memorizes entire books after reading a few times so I knew having her read the words off the list would cause her to learn the words by order rather than actually reading them so I decided to make flash cards for her.
Usually I’m not a big fan of flash cards and drill or rote learning, but in certain situations like sight words and multiplication tables, you have to just memorize and flash cards are great for that. I did each list on a separate color of cardstock and we have been working through one color at a time until she knows all of them and can go read them to her teacher. So far she’s learned the first 31 words and knows almost all of the 2nd 20 (after only 1 day!)
But the flash cards have become not just a tool for memorizing the words but we’ve actually turned them into an additional game of sentence making. We take her school sight words and a few I’ve added (mostly nouns which are not very plentiful in her sight words) and take turns making sentences. It helps her learn basic grammar and sentence structure and I’ve actually enjoyed trying to make the longest sentences I can (26 words is my top right now using only her 1st 31 sight words and my nouns) and then having her read them. It’s been a great way to teach her in a way that doesn’t feel like work to her and it’s something we both really enjoy.
My long sentence and Honeybun’s sentence (“at” is on the second list and she specifically asked for it when we were working sentences with her first set)
